Extended Producer Responsibility
Environmental management at Surya Roshni Ltd. includes the sustainable handling of energy, water, waste, and chemicals as well as the control of air pollution. Above that, the environmentally conscious design and recycling of products play an important role. These objectives are defined in our EHS guidelines and are therefore mandatory for all locations of operation across the country. In order to continually monitor the degree of achievement of our objectives for environmental protection, we have created an organization with clearly defined areas of responsibility and a system management, certified according to the international standard ISO 14001 for continuous improvement processes.
Environmental protection at our production sites
The responsibility towards the environment is the primary concern of Surya Roshni Ltd. The responsibility protection of the environment at the company level lies on the shoulder of the company management and is supervised by the EHS department which handles company-wide coordination and continued development. At individual plants, managers and their department heads are responsible for practical implementation. The plants receive support and advice from our environmental experts on energy, water, waste, chemicals, and air pollution.
EOL Lamps Handling Process
Surya Roshni avoids waste in a possible manner. Our lamps only contain a minimum amount of environmentally damaging substances and we do not use unnecessary packaging materials. Our packaging material is eco-friendly (as maximum as possible). We continuously work on improving our products to make them as recyclable to the possible extent. When developing new products, we reduce the number of harmful substances or, if possible, completely replace them with harmless substances.
Fluorescent lamps and discharge lamps contain small amounts of mercury and valuable raw materials such as rare earth. That is why these products should not be thrown out with the garbage or other glass, but has to be collected separately and recycled or be disposed of safely.
The products of the lamp industry are unique in terms of disposal. Approximately 80% of all used equipment are lamps, but they only account for 1% of the total electronic waste by weight. Our products are fragile and therefore also need to be handled in a specific way at the end of their life. The high quantity, the necessary small-scale logistics, and the requirements for handling these products call for the tailor-made organization for best recycling results.
Incandescent lamps and halogen lamps consist of glass and metal and do not contain any harmful substances. Collecting them separately does not make sense so they can simply be disposed of with other garbage. Therefore these two product families are generally not within the scope of the WEEE directive.
Collection requirements
Taken into consideration the specifics already described, large manufacturers within the lamp industry, set up CRSOs (Collection and Recycling Service Organizations) in most European countries which organize the collection and eco-friendly disposal of old equipment for the industry. These companies look after the following tasks for us:
- Creating a disposal system, taking into account and including communal collection arrangements by coordinating with the other managing member.
- Actively educating consumers and raising their awareness for handling our products in an eco-friendly way at the end of the product's life. We believe that it is beneficial to understand the usage of a product before using it as it saves individual efforts and time.
- Carrying out the actual collection, transport, recycling, and disposal.
- Developing new technologies and processes to increase the percentage to be reused.
Technical procedures
Various recycling procedures have been established for the reuse of LED and discharge lamps for both stationary and mobile operations. These procedures aim at neatly separating the components of the lamps and reusing the remaining material wherever possible. Clean glass is used for the production of new lamps and mixed glass is recycled with other glass. Metal parts go into metal recycling and plastics are mainly recycled thermally. Phosphors are blown out or rinsed out and can be used for industrial processes. The remaining mercury is disposed of appropriately. This is how more than 90% of raw lamp materials are reused by Surya Roshni team to produce the cost-effective and reliable products. Using the recycling material might take a little extra effort on our part but we are sure enough that our contribution will create a big difference in the world.
